A Canyon Voyage

F >> Frederick S. Dellenbaugh >> A Canyon Voyage

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The Major entertained some idea of making a boat trip up the Grand, but
he abandoned it, and we prepared for the work ahead. The rations, which
were now fallen to poverty bulk, were carefully overhauled and evenly
distributed among the boats, so that the wrecking of any one would not
deprive us of more than a portion of each article. The amount for daily
use was also determined; of the bacon we were to have at a meal only
half the usual quantity. We knew Cataract Canyon was rough, but by this
time we were in excellent training and thoroughly competent for the kind
of navigation required; ready for anything that strong boats like ours
could live through. At ten o'clock on Tuesday, September 19th, the
cabins were all packed, the life preservers were inflated, and casting
off from Camp 62 we were borne down with the swift current. The water
was muddy, of a coffee-and-cream colour, and the river was falling. Not
far below our camp we saw a beaten trail coming down a singular canyon
on the left or east side, showing again that the natives understood the
way in to the Junction.[17] We knew it was not far to rapids, as we had
seen two heavy ones from the brink above, and we soon heard the familiar
roar of plunging water, a sound which had been absent since the end of
Gray Canyon. Presently we were bearing down on the first one, looking
for the way to pass it. On landing at the head it was seen to be a
rather rough place, and it was deemed advisable to avoid running it. The
boats were carefully let down by lines and we went on. In a short
distance we reached a second rapid, where we decided to repeat the
operation that took us past the other, but these two let-downs consumed
much time and gave us hard work. The water was cold, we were wet and
hungry, and when we arrived at a third that was more forbidding than the
ones above we halted for dinner at its beginning. The muddy water boomed
and plunged over innumerable rocks--a mad, irresistible flood. So great
was the declivity of the river bed that boulders were rolled along under
water with a sound like distant thunder. We had noticed this also in
Lodore, but in Cataract it was more common. The rumbling was
particularly noticeable if one were standing in the water, as we so
continually were. After dinner the boats were lowered past the rapid,
but we had no respite, for presently we came upon another big one, then
another, and another, and then still another, all following quickly and
giving us plenty of extremely hard work, for we would not risk the boats
in any of them. When these were behind us we went on a distance and came
to one that we ran, and then, wet through and shivering till our teeth
chattered, as well as being hungry and tired, every one was glad to hear
the decision to go into camp when we arrived at the top of another very
ugly pair of them. The canyon having a north and south trend and it
being autumn, the sun disappeared early so far as we were concerned; the
shadows were deep, the mountain air was penetrating. As soon as possible
our soaking river garments were thrown off, the dry clothing from the
rubber bags was put on, the limited bacon was sending its fragrance into
the troubled air, the bread took on a nice deep brown in the Dutch oven,
the coffee's aromatic steam drifted from the fire, and warm and
comfortable we sat down to the welcome though meagre meal. The rule was
three little strips of bacon, a chunk of bread about the size of one's
fist, and coffee without stint for each man three times a day. Sugar was
a scarce article, and I learned to like coffee without it so well that I
have never taken it with sugar since. The "Tirtaan Aigles" needed now
all the muscle and energy they could command, and an early hour found
every man sound asleep. The record for the first day in Cataract Canyon
was nine miles, with eight bad rapids or cataracts, as they might
properly be called, and out of the eight we ran but one.[18] The river
was about 250 feet wide.

[Illustration: Clement Powell

Cataract Canyon.

Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871]

The Major decided the next morning that he would try to get out on the
right, and he took me with him. We had no great trouble in reaching the
plateau at an elevation of eighteen hundred feet above the river, where
we could see an immense area of unknown country. The broken and
pinnacled character was not so marked as it had been at the Junction,
but it was still a strange, barren land. We expected to find
water-pockets on the top, and we had carried with us only one quart
canteen of water. While the Major was taking notes from the summit of a
butte, I made a zealous search for water, but not a drop could I find;
every hole was dry. The sun burned down from a clear sky that melted
black into eternal space. The yellow sand threw the hot rays upward, and
so also did the smooth bare rock. No bird, no bee, no thing of life
could be seen. I came to a whitish cliff upon which I thought there
might be water-pockets, and I mounted by a steep slope of broken stones.
Suddenly, almost within touch, I saw before me a golden yellow
rattlesnake gliding upward in the direction I was going along the cliff
wall. I killed it with a stone, and cut off the rattles and continued my
reconnaissance. At length I gave up the search. By the time I had
returned to the foot of the butte on which the Major was making his
observations, the heat had exhausted me till I was obliged to rest a few
moments before ascending the sixty feet to where he was. I had carried
the canteen all the time, and the water in it was hot from exposure to
the sun. The Major bade me rest while he made a little fire, and by the
aid of a can and ground coffee we had brought he made a strong decoction
with the whole quart. This gave us two cups apiece, and we had some
bread to go with it. The effect was magical. My fatigue vanished. I felt
equal to anything, and we began the return.

The Major having no right arm, he sometimes got in a difficult situation
when climbing, if his right side came against a smooth surface where
there was nothing opposite. We had learned to go down by the same route
followed up, because otherwise one is never sure of arriving at the
bottom, as a ledge half-way down might compel a return to the summit. We
remembered that at one point there was no way for him to hold on, the
cliff being smooth on the right, while on the left was empty air, with a
sheer drop of several hundred feet. The footing too was narrow. I
climbed down first, and, bracing myself below with my back to the abyss,
I was able to plant my right foot securely in such a manner that my
right knee formed a solid step for him at the critical moment. On this
improvised step he placed his left foot, and in a twinkling had made the
passage in safety.

During our absence the men below had been at work. Camp was moved down
the river some three quarters of a mile, while the boats had been
lowered past the ugly pair of rapids, and were moored at the camp below
the second. In one the current had "got the bulge," as we called it, on
the men on the line; that is, the powerful current had hit the bow in
such a way that the boat took the diagonal of forces and travelled up
and out into the river. For the men it was either let go or be pulled
in. They let go, and the boat dashed down with her cargo on board.
Fortune was on our side. She went through without injury and shot into
an eddy below. With all speed the men rushed down, and Jack, plunging
in, swam to her and got on before she could take a fresh start. It was a
narrow escape, but it taught a lesson that was not forgotten. Prof. had
succeeded in getting some observations, and all was well. It was bean
day, too, according to our calendar, and all hands had a treat.

By eight o'clock the next morning, Thursday, September 21st, we were on
the way again, with the boats "close reefed," as it were, for trouble,
but one, two, three and one half miles slid easily behind. Then, as if
to make up for this bit of leniency, six rapids came in close
succession, though they were of a kind that we could safely run, and all
the boats went flying through them without a mishap of any kind. The
next was a plunger so mixed up with rocks that we made a let-down and
again proceeded a short distance before we were halted by one more of
the same sort, though we were able to run the lower portion of it. A
little below this we met a friendly drop, and whizzed through its rush
and roar in triumph. But there was nothing triumphant about the one
which followed, so far as our work was concerned. We manoeuvred past
it with much difficulty only to find ourselves upon two more bad ones.
Bad as they were, they were nevertheless runable, and away we dashed
with breakneck speed, certainly not less than twenty miles an hour, down
both of them, to land on the left immediately at the beginning of a
great and forbidding descent. These let-downs were difficult, often
requiring all hands to each boat, except the Major, whose one-armed
condition made it too hard for him to assist in the midst of rocks and
rushing water, where one had to be very nimble and leap and balance with
exactness. Two good arms were barely sufficient. Sometimes, in order to
pass the gigantic boulders that stretched far off from the shore, the
boat had to be shot around and hauled in below, an operation requiring
skill, strength, and celerity.

The walls, very craggy at the top, increased in altitude till they were
now about sixteen hundred feet, separated from each other by one third
of a mile. The flaring character of the upper miles of the canyon began
to change to a narrower gorge, the cliffs showing a nearer approach to
verticality. At the head of the forbidding plunge we had our slice of
bacon, with bread and coffee, and then we fought our way down alongside
amongst immense boulders and roaring water. It was an exceedingly hard
place to vanquish, and required two and a half hours of the most violent
exertion to accomplish it. All were necessary to handle each boat.
Hardly had we passed beyond the turmoil of its fierce opposition than we
fell upon another scarcely less antagonistic, but yet apparently so free
from rocks that the Major concluded it could be run. At the outset our
boat struck on a concealed rock, and for a moment it seemed that we
might capsize, but luckily she righted, swung free, and swept down with
no further trouble. The _Nell_ struck the same rock and so did the
_Canonita_, but neither was injured or even halted. These boats were
somewhat lighter than ours, having one man less in each, and therefore
did not hit the rock so hard. The boats were now heavy from being
water-soaked, for the paint was gone from the bottoms. This would have
made no difference in any ordinary waters, but it did here, where we
were obliged to lift them so constantly.

This was an extremely rough and wet day's work, and the moment the great
cliffs cut off the warmth of the direct sun we were thrown suddenly from
summer to winter, and our saturated clothing, uncomfortably cool in
sunlight, became icy with the evaporation and the cold shadow-air. We
turned blue, and no matter how firmly I tried to shut my teeth they
rattled like a pair of castanets. Though it was only half-past three,
the Major decided to camp as soon as he saw this effect, much as we had
need to push on. We landed on the right, and were soon revived by dry
clothes and a big fire of driftwood. We had made during the day a total
distance of a trifle less than seven miles, one and three quarters since
dinner. There were fourteen rapids and cataracts, nine of which we ran,
on a river about two hundred feet wide. We had sand to sleep on, but all
around us were rocks, rocks, rocks, with the mighty bounding cliffs
lifting up to the sky. Our books for the time being were not disturbed,
but Whittier's lines, read further up, seemed here exactly appropriate
to the Colorado:

"Hurrying down to its grave, the sea,
And slow through the rock its pathway hewing!
Far down, through the mist of the falling river,
Which rises up like an incense ever,
The splintered points of the crags are seen,
With water howling and vexed between,
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth!"

It was not long before the blankets were taken from the rubber bags and
spread on the sand, and the rapids, the rocks, and all our troubles were
forgotten.

The next day was almost a repetition of the preceding one. We began by
running a graceful little rapid, just beyond which we came to a very bad
place. The river was narrow and deep, with a high velocity, and the
channel was filled with enormous rocks. Two hours of the hardest kind of
work in and out of the water, climbing over gigantic boulders along the
bank, lifting the boats and sliding them on driftwood skids, tugging,
pulling, shoving every minute with might and main put us at the bottom.
No sooner were we past this one than we engaged in a similar battle with
another of the same nature, and below it we stopped for dinner, amidst
some huge boulders under a hackberry tree, near another roarer. One of
these cataracts had a fall of not less than twenty feet in six hundred,
which gave the water terrific force and violence. The canyon walls
closed in more and more and ran up to two thousand feet, apparently
nearly vertical as one looked up at them, but there was always plenty of
space for landings and camps. Opposite the noon camp we could see to a
height beyond of at least three thousand feet. We were in the heart of
another great plateau. After noon we attacked the very bad rapid beside
whose head we had eaten, and it was half-past three when we had finished
it. The boats had been considerably pounded and there was a hole in the
_Dean_, and a plank sprung in the _Nell_ so that her middle cabin was
half full of water. The iron strip on the _Dean's_ keel was breaking
off. Repairs were imperative, and on the right, near the beginning of
one of the worst falls we had yet seen, we went into camp for the rest
of the day. With false ribs made from oars we strengthened the boats and
put them in condition for another day's hammering. It seemed as if we
must have gone this day quite a long distance, but on footing up it was
found to be no more than a mile and a quarter. Darkness now fell early
and big driftwood fires made the evenings cheerful. There was a vast
amount of driftwood in tremendous piles, trees, limbs, boughs, railroad
ties; a great mixture of all kinds, some of it lying full fifty feet
above the present level of the river. There were large and small
tree-trunks battered and limbless, the ends pounded to a spongy mass of
splinters. Our bright fires enabled us to read, or to write up notes and
diaries. I think each one but the Major and Andy kept a diary and
faithfully wrote it up. Jack occasionally gave us a song or two from the
repertory already described, and Steward did not forget the mouth-organ,
but through the hardest part of Cataract Canyon we were usually tired
enough to take to our blankets early.

In the morning we began the day by running a little rapid between our
camp and the big one that we saw from there, and then we had to exert
some careful engineering to pass below by means of the lines. This
accomplished we found a repetition of the same kind of work necessary
almost immediately, at the next rapid. In places we had to lift the
boats out and slide them along on driftwood skids. These rapids were
largely formed by enormous rocks which had fallen from the cliffs, and
over, around, and between these it was necessary to manoeuvre the
boats by lines to avoid the furious waters of the outer river. After
dinner we arrived at a descent which at first glance seemed as bad as
anything we had met in the morning but an examination showed a prospect
of a successful run through it. The fall was nearly twenty feet in about
as many yards. The Major and Prof. examined it long and carefully. A
successful run would take two minutes, while a let-down would occupy us
for at least two hours and it had some difficult points. They hesitated
about running the place, for they would not take a risk that was not
necessary, but finally they concluded it could be safely accomplished,
and we pulled the _Dean_ as quickly as possible into the middle of the
river and swung down into it. On both sides the water was hammered to
foam amidst great boulders and the roar as usual was deafening. Just
through the centre was a clean, clear chute followed by a long tail of
waves breaking and snapping like some demon's jaws. As we struck into
them they swept over us like combers on the beach in a great storm. It
seemed to me here and at other similar places that we went through some
of the waves like a needle and jumped to the top of others, to balance
half-length out of water for an instant before diving to another trough.
Being in the very bow the waves, it appeared to me, sometimes completely
submerged me and almost took my breath away with the sudden impact. At
any rate it was lively work, with a current of fifteen or eighteen miles
an hour. Beaman had stationed himself where he could get a negative of
us ploughing through these breakers, but his wet-plates were too slow
and he had no success. After this came a place which permitted no such
jaunty treatment. It was in fact three or four rapids following each
other so closely that, though some might be successfully run, the last
was not safe, and no landing could be made at its head, so a very long
let-down was obligatory; but it was an easy one, for each crew could
take its own boat down without help from the others. Then, tired, wet,
and cold as usual, we landed on the left in a little cove where there
was a sandy beach for our Camp 67. We had made less than four miles, in
which distance there were six rapids, only two of which we ran. At
another stage of water the number and character of these rapids would be
changed; some would be easier at higher water, some harder, and the same
would be true of lower water. Rapids also change their character from
time to time as rocks are shifted along the bottom and more rocks fall
from the cliffs or are brought in by side floods. The walls were now
about two thousand feet, of limestone, with a reddish stain, and they
were so near together that the sun shone to the bottom only during the
middle hours of the day in September.

It was now September 24th; a bright and beautiful Sunday broke, the sky
above clear and tranquil, the river below foaming and fuming between the
ragged walls in one continuous rapid with merely variations of descent.
In three quarters of a mile we arrived before the greatest portion of
the declivity, where, though there seemed to be a clear chute, we did
not consider it advisable to make the run because of conditions
following; neither could we make a regular let-down or a portage. The
least risky method was to carry a line down and when all was ready start
the boat in at the top alone. In this way when she had gone through, the
men on the line below were able to bring her up and haul her in before
reaching the next bad plunge. There was no quiet river anywhere; nothing
but rushing, swirling, plunging water and rocks. We got past the bad
spot successfully and went on making one let-down after another for
about four miles, when we halted at noon for the rest of the day, well
satisfied with our progress though in distance it appeared so slight.
The afternoon was spent in repairing boats, working up notes, and taking
observations. The cliffs were now some 2500 feet in height, ragged and
broken on their faces, but close together, the narrowest deep chasm we
had seen. It was truly a terrible place, with the fierce river, the
giant walls, and the separation from any known path to the outer world.
I thought of the Major's first trip, when it was not known what kind of
waters were here. Vertical and impassable falls might easily have barred
his way and cataracts behind prevented return, so that here in a death
trap they would have been compelled to plunge into the river or wait for
starvation. Happly he had encountered no such conditions.

An interesting feature of this canyon was the manner in which huge
masses of rock lying in the river had been ground into each other by the
force of the current. One block of sandstone, weighing not less than six
hundred tons, being thirty or forty feet long by twenty feet square, had
been oscillated till the limestone boulders on which it rested had
ground into it at least two feet, fitting closely. Another enormous
piece was slowly and regularly rocking as the furious current beat upon
it, and one could feel the movement distinctly. A good night's sleep
made all of us fresh again, and we began the Monday early. Some worked
on the boats, while Beaman and Clem went up "Gypsum" Canyon, as Steward
named it, for views, and the Major and I climbed out for topographic
observations. We reached an altitude above camp of 3135 feet at a point
seven or eight miles back from the brink. The view in all directions
was beyond words to describe. Mountains and mountains, canyons, cliffs,
pinnacles, buttes surrounded us as far as we could see, and the range
was extensive. The Sierra La Sal, the Sierra Abajo, and other short
ranges lay blue in the distance, while comparatively near in the
south-west rose the five beautiful peaks just beyond the mouth of the
Dirty Devil, composing the unknown range before mentioned. At noon we
made coffee, had lunch, and then went on. It was four o'clock by the
time we concluded to start back, and darkness overtook us before we were
fairly down the cliffs, but there was a bright moon, and by its aid we
reached camp.

At half-past eight in the morning of September 26th we were again
working our way down the torrential river. Anybody who tries to go
through here in any haphazard fashion will surely come to grief. It is a
passage that can safely be made only with the most extreme caution. The
walls grew straighter, and they grew higher till the gorge assumed
proportions that seemed to me the acme of the stupendous and
magnificent. The scenery may not have been beautiful in the sense that
an Alpine lake is beautiful, but in the exhibition of the power and
majesty of nature it was sublime. There was the same general barrenness:
only a few hackberry trees, willows, and a cottonwood or two along the
margin of the river made up the vegetation. Our first task was a
difficult let-down, which we accomplished safely, to find that we could
run two rapids following it and half of another, landing then to
complete it by a let-down. Then came a very sharp drop that we ran,
which put us before another easy one, that was followed by a difficult
bit of navigation through a bad descent, after which we stopped for
dinner on the right at the head of another rapid. The cliffs now on both
sides were about 2800 feet, one quarter mile wide at top, and in places
striking me as being perpendicular, especially in the outer curve of the
bends. The boats seemed to be scarcely more than chips on the sweeping
current and we not worth mentioning. During the afternoon we halted a
number of times for Beaman to make photographs, but the proportions were
almost too great for any camera. The foreground parts are always
magnified, while the distances are diminished, till the view is not that
which the eye perceives. Before stopping for the night we ran three
more rapids, and camped on the right on a sandbank at the head of
another forbidding place. The record for the whole day was six and three
quarter miles, with ten runs and two let-downs. At one bad place the
_Nell_ got too far over and laboured so heavily in the enormous billows
that Cap., who pulled the bow oars, was completely lost to sight and the
boat was filled with water. Only about thirty degrees of sky were
visible as one looked directly up from our camp. A pretty canyon came in
near camp, and some of us took a walk up its narrow way.

[Illustration: Cataract Canyon.

Photograph by E. O. Beaman, 1871.]

In the morning Beaman made some pictures, and it was eleven o'clock
before we resumed our navigation. Our first work was a let-down, which
took an hour, and about a mile below we stopped for dinner on the left.
Then we continued, making eight miles more, in which distance we ran six
rapids and made two line-portages. The last rapid was a bad one, and
there we made one of the portages, camping at its foot on the left bank.
The walls began to diminish in height and the river was less
precipitous, as is apparent from the progress we were able to make.
September 28th we began by running two rapids immediately below camp,
and the _Nell_ remained at the foot of the second to signal Beaman in
the _Canonita_, as he had stayed behind to take some views. Another mile
brought us to a rather bad place, the right having a vertical cliff
about 2700 feet high, but the left was composed of boulders spread over
a wide stretch, so that an excellent footing was offered. The Major and
Prof. concluded to climb out here, instead of a point farther down
called Millecrag Bend, and, appointing Steward master of the let-down
which was necessary, they left us. It was dinner-time when we got the
boats below to a safe cove, and we were quite ready for the meal which
Andy meanwhile had been cooking. A beautiful little brook came down a
narrow canyon on the left, and it was up this stream that the Major went
for a mile and a half and then climbed on the side. They were obliged to
give it up and come back to the bottom. By this time it was too late to
make another attempt, so they turned their backs on "Failure Creek,"
and, returning to us, said we would go on as soon as we had eaten the
supper which Andy was preparing. They would climb out at Millecrag Bend.
Andy had cooked a mess of beans, about the last we had, and what we did
not eat we put on board in the kettle, which had a tight cover. The
Major's manner for a day or two had been rather moody, and when Prof.
intimated to me that we would have a lively time before we saw another
camp, I knew some difficult passage ahead was on his mind; some place
which had given him trouble on the first trip.

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